Brien Lang News

If you took two plutonium hemispheres labeled 'American folk tradition' and 'cerebral poetry' and smashed them together in a critical mass, the musical 'Futurity' would be the resulting atomic explosion. The Wilbury Theatre Group in Providence has captured the chaotic energy of this show in a production that is uplifting, thought-provoking, and totally enjoyable.

The Wilbury Theatre Group continues its record-breaking 2018/19 season with the Rhode Island premiere of the avant-americana musical by Cesar Alvarez and The Lisps, Futurity, December 6-23, 2018.

The Wilbury Theatre Group continues its record-breaking 2018/19 season with the Rhode Island premiere of the avant-americana musical by Cesar Alvarez and The Lisps, Futurity, December 6-23, 2018.

In a ceremony at the Viacom Center in New York, Providence's Wilbury Theatre Group accepted the prestigious 2018 National Theatre Company Award. Wilbury Founder and Artistic Director Josh Short accepted the award from Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang, Chairman of the Board of The American Theatre Wing, best known as the creator of the Antoinette Perry "Tony" Awards.

The American Theatre Wing recently held its gala honoring the recipients of the 2018 National Theatre Company Grants. Check out the photos below!

This subversive, loopy, and fantastically eccentric take-think banjos, beach balls, and guitars-on Gilbert and Sullivan's preposterous musical took audiences in Chicago by storm when presented by rebel theatre-makers The Hipocrites. Frederic was mistakenly apprenticed as a young boy to a band of sentimental pirates. Now 21, he falls head-over-heels for the Major-General's daughter and forswears the buccaneer's life forever, or so he thinks. This buoyant, award-winning Pirates of Penzance by Sean Graney and Kevin O'Donnell and featuring just 12 actors (who also serve as the orchestra) is an irrevent and fresh homage to a world turned upside-down for Gilbert and Sullivan diehard fans and newcomers alike.

The Wilbury Theatre Group's Artistic Director Josh Short has announced the Group's 2018/19 Main Series Season. The exciting 6 play season includes plans for revivals of classic plays from the American canon alongside experimental new works by the brightest theatre artists working today, including Paul Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning How I Learned to Drive, Idris Goodwin's hip-hop inspired drama Hype Man: a break beat play, Cesar Alvarez and The Lisps' 2016 avant-Americana musical Futurity, a minimalist interpretation of Arthur Miller's American classic The Crucible, Nick Payne's Constellations, and the 2015 Tony Award-winner for Best Musical, Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori's Fun Home, based on the graphic novel by Allison Bechdel.

In CHURCH, 'the best playwright of her generation' (The New York Times) Young Jean Lee transforms her life-long struggle with Christianity into an exuberant church service. This church of celebration is designed to test the expectations of religious and non-religious alike. Never content with simple parody, Lee aims to give herself and her audiences a true religious experience.

The Wilbury Theatre Group proudly announces the Rhode Island premiere of Church by acclaimed playwright Young Jean Lee (2016/17's Straight White Men at The Wilbury Group) as she transforms her life-long struggle with Christianity into an exuberant church service, complete with a gospel choir. Directed by Brien Lang, Church will test the expectations of religious and non-religious alike looking deep into why we believe what we believe as an uplifting, joyous and inspirational event that may be Lee's most miraculous or devious experiment to date.

MR. BURNS, A POST-ELECTRIC PLAY by Anne Washburn, directed by Brien Lang, is currently playing at The Wilbury Theatre Group. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

The Wilbury Group proudly announces the Spring production of Anne Washburn's 2014 off-Broadway hit Mr Burns, a post-electric play directed by Brien Lang in performances March 16-April 1, 2017. 

Ill Seen Ill Said is a late work from Samuel Beckett that paints a haunting picture of an old woman alone in a cabin, who watches the evening and the morning star and ventures out chiefly to visit a grave. In prose of great poetic beauty, which the author translated from his original French text Mal vu mal dit in 1982, Beckett returns to the imagery of the Old and New Testaments to speculate on the great questions of human existence. 

The Wilbury Group's New Works development program, Studio W, proudly announces a staged-adaptation of Samuel Beckett's classic novella, Ill Seen Ill Said, adapted and directed by Erik Ehn with exclusive permission from the Samuel Beckett Estate. 

Not only do we have two acclaimed productions running in rotating rep now thru December 23 (Straight White Men and Di and Viv and Rose), we've got a slew of special events coming up this month to tell you about! 

There is certainly something worthwhile about theater that pushes boundaries, tries new things, experiments and offers unique way to tell a story. The art form, in general, benefit from that kind of work. It benefits from work that expands the minds of an audience and tells them a story in a way that challenges them. On the other hand, Wilbury Group's second show of the year, 10,000 Things by Erik Ehn, proves how this kind of theater can instead leave an audience bored, confused or both. 

The Wilbury Theatre Group proudly announces the world premiere of ?10,000 Things, a new work by acclaimed playwright Erik Ehn, October 20-30 2016.

The Wilbury Theatre Group proudly announces the world premiere of ?10,000 Things, a new work by acclaimed playwright Erik Ehn, October 20-30 2016.

There's a moment in the play Stupid F#%*ing Bird, currently playing at The Wilbury Group, where a character talks about how contemporary theaters adapt and reimagine Shakespeare. Certainly, it's always a tricky proposition, reconfiguring a classic work and attempting to bring it into the current era while maintaining all the aspects, themes and characteristics that made it great. Or, at least, finding a way to reshape it so it will hold up in front of today's audiences, keeping them engaged and entertained within of our modern-day context. As written by Aaron Posner, adapted from the classic Anton Chekhov play The Seagull, Bird is a play that more than holds its own as a thought provoking, entertaining and hilarious modern take on a theatrical classic.

The struggle to find something real, something true or something meaningful, in life is certainly something everyone can relate to. All of us, or most of us, at least, spend some or maybe even all of our lives searching for just that. True love. Meaningful work. Artistic expression that has a real impact. Our true selves. Searching for these things is at the heart of our lives and our life's work. And it's at the heart of the excellent musical Passing Strange, now receiving it's Rhode Island premiere at The Wilbury Group.

The Wilbury Theatre Group continues its 2015/16 season with the Rhode Island premiere of the acclaimed rock musical, Passing Strange, November 19-December 5, 2015.